Lindsey Vonn came back last season after a five-year retirement to bid for one last Olympics.
Lindsey Vonn is bringing in fellow Olympic gold medalist Aksel Lund Svindal as a coach as she bids for a fifth Olympics next February.
Svindal, who like Vonn retired at the 2019 World Championships, will begin coaching Vonn in person at a training camp in Chile later this summer. He previously helped Vonn remotely last season, when she returned to ski racing for the first time in five years, according to a press release.
"Bringing Aksel onto my team for this season feels like a natural and incredibly exciting step," Vonn said in the release. "We've shared so much history on the mountain, from training to winning World Cup titles, and there's a deep level of trust and respect that's developed over the years."
Svindal will be Vonn's principal coach while Chris Knight, her coach last season, remains on her staff, according to The New York Times.
"I love skiing and I've stayed in contact with the sport after I retired," Svindal said in the release. "I was a bit surprised when Lindsey called me, but mostly honored. She is one of the absolutely greatest skiers of all time, and I'm very impressed by her determination in this comeback. She knows me quite well, so she wouldn't have asked unless she really thought I could contribute."
Vonn, who has Norwegian heritage, used to train with Svindal and fellow Norwegian ski racer Kjetil Jansrud.
"My known relatives have the surname 'Nilsen,' which Kjetil and Aksel enjoyed calling me on the hill, as a nickname of sorts," Vonn wrote in "Rise," her 2022 memoir.
In early 2020, Vonn watched her first ski race as a spectator since her first retirement. She shared the moment with Svindal, a gold medalist in 2010 (super-G) and 2018 (downhill).
"He’s always been such a generous, positive sportsman, especially when it came to talking technique and helping other skiers, and he’s brought the same attitude into his retirement," Vonn wrote. "As we watched our fellow racers, now from the other side, he shared such a great perspective. 'I love the sport, and I want other people to love it,' he said. 'Even though I can’t do it anymore, I still want to share that passion.' When I heard his words, I felt my resentment of skiing begin to melt away. Aksel helped me remember why I did it in the first place — because I loved it. That epiphany brought me to a more balanced place. Now I know I can still appreciate skiing, that I will always have that same love for it. No one can ever take that away."
Vonn capped her comeback season by finishing second in her last race of the 2024-25 campaign — the super-G at March's World Cup Finals in Sun Valley, Idaho.
Vonn, 40, shattered the record of oldest women’s World Cup podium finisher. Austrian Alexandra Meissnitzer made her last podium at 34 years and nearly 9 months old in 2008, according to ski-db.com.
“I usually do better when the pressure’s higher,” Vonn, an 82-time World Cup winner and the 2010 Olympic downhill champion, said that day. “It’s the last race of the season. I just put it all on the line. This is the level that I know I can ski. I know I can even do better than that. It’s been a rough season of people saying that I can’t, that I’m too old, that I’m not good enough anymore. I think I proved everyone wrong.”
Vonn’s goal in her comeback is to make her fifth Olympic team in 2026, then retire for good.
A nation can qualify up to four skiers per Olympic race, and Vonn was the third-ranked American last season in the downhill and second in the super-G. The Olympic team for the Milan Cortina Games will be named in the winter closer to the February Games.
Category: General Sports
